Home Safety Project, 1987-1992: [Shelby County, Tennessee, King County, Washington, and Cuyahoga County, Ohio] (ICPSR 6898)

The Home Safety Project was a population-based case control
study of homicide in the home with control households matched to cases
by victim age range, race, gender, and neighborhood (a proxy for
socioeconomic status). The study was conducted in the following
locations: Shelby County, Tennessee (August 23, 1987-August 23, 1992),
King County, Washington (August 23, 1987-August 23, 1992), and
Cuyahoga County, Ohio (January 1, 1990-August 23, 1992). The purpose
of the data collection was to study r... (more info)

The Home Safety Project was a population-based case control
study of homicide in the home with control households matched to cases
by victim age range, race, gender, and neighborhood (a proxy for
socioeconomic status). The study was conducted in the following
locations: Shelby County, Tennessee (August 23, 1987-August 23, 1992),
King County, Washington (August 23, 1987-August 23, 1992), and
Cuyahoga County, Ohio (January 1, 1990-August 23, 1992). The purpose
of the data collection was to study risk and protective factors for
homicide in the home and to identify individual and household factors
associated with homicide (both behavioral and
environmental). Respondents were asked a series of questions related
to alcohol consumption, such as whether drinking ever created problems
between household members, whether any household members had had
trouble at work because of drinking, whether any physical fights or
other violence had occurred in the home or outside the home due to
drinking, and whether any injuries or hospital stays had resulted from
drinking/fighting episodes. Additional queries covered whether any
adult in the household had ever been arrested for any reason, whether
anyone in the household used illicit drugs, and, if so, which
ones. Questions on home safety features included whether the home had
a burglar alarm, bars on the windows, exterior door deadbolt, security
door, dogs, and any restricted access to the residence. Items on gun
ownership covered whether there were any guns in the home and, if so,
what type. Information also was elicited on the homicide that had
taken place in the home, including whether the suspect was intimate
with the victim, whether there was evidence of forced entry or entry
without consent, whether the victim attempted to resist, and the
respondent's assumption of the method of death as well as the medical
examiner's determination. Demographic information includes victims'
age, sex, and race, and respondents' age and sex. The unit of analysis
is individual cases of homicide.

Universe:
All homicides in homes that involved residents of the
three study counties (Shelby County, Tennessee, King County,
Washington, and Cuyahoga County, Ohio) during the study interval. Any
death that was ruled a homicide was included, regardless of
method. Assaults were included if the victim died within three months
due to injury.

Data Types:
administrative records data,
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

All individual identifiers were removed by the
principal investigators to protect confidentiality.

Methodology

Data Source:

structured interviews and medical examiner records

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1997-05-30

Version History:

2006-03-30 File CB6898.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

1997-11-18 One variable was recoded in Part 1, Homicide Data,
and corresponding changes were made to the codebook and data definition
statements. Also, in the codebook and data definition
statements, several value labels were changed and the
order of two variables was switched.